However, the Bataan Death March stands among the most horrific. For a detailed rundown, you can watch the acclaimed docuseries World War II with Tom Hanks on Sky HISTORY. The Bataan Death March is thought to have claimed thousands of lives, with exhausted soldiers dropping dead of disease and malnutrition. Not long after the Bataan Death March began, up to 400 of the POWs were summarily executed in the Pantingan River massacre. It is thought that, of the 75,000 POWs who embarked on the Bataan Death March, just 54,000 reached Camp O’Donnell.